_xeno_ writes: It's been 15 years since Final Fantasy was a major player in the console RPG space. The past several Final Fantasy releases have been disasters: the critically panned linear XIII and the MMO that shut down its servers after only two years. Square Enix hopes to reverse that with XV, making a large push to understand how the world outside of Japan understands RPGs and trying to make an RPG that will succeed everywhere, and not just in Japan. But is it too little, too late? Can Square Enix really restore Final Fantasy to the brand it used to be back when they were still Squaresoft?

_xeno_ writes: A recent article on Steam Spy talks about how your target audience doesn't exist — or, more specifically, how there is no such thing as an "FPS gamer" or an "MMO gamer" or a "MOBA gamer." The majority of players tend to be fans of specific games, rather than genres. For example, the wildly popular MMO World of Warcraft managed to reach over 10 million players at its peak. However, these players never became "MMO gamers" — they were simply World of Warcraft gamers. As World of Warcraft's subscriber numbers fall, there's been no corresponding uptick in subscribers of other, competing MMOs. In fact, pretty much ever MMO released since World of Warcraft has been forced to move to a "free-to-play" model simply to survive. The article explains how the majority of gamers concentrate on a very small number of games, rarely trying new games: they're fans of a specific game, not any game that plays like it.

_xeno_ writes: Just over a week after Warner Bros. pulled the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight due to bugs, Square Enix is now being forced to do the same thing with the Mac OS X version of Final Fantasy XIV (which was released at the same time as Batman: Arkham Knight). The rather long note explaining the decision apologizes for releasing the port before it was ready and blames OS X and OpenGL for the performance discrepancy between the game's performance on identical Mac hardware running Windows. It's unclear when (or even if) Square Enix will resume selling an OS X version — the note indicates that the development team is hopeful that "[w]ith the adoption of DirectX11 for Mac, and the replacement of OpenGL with a new graphics API in Apple’s next OS, the fundamental gap in current performance issues may soon be eliminated." (I'm not sure what "the adoption of DirectX11 for Mac" refers to. OS X gaining DirectX 11 support is news to me — and, I suspect, Microsoft.) Given that the game supports the aging PS3 console, you'd think the developers would be able to find a way to get the same graphics as the PS3 version on more powerful Mac OS X hardware.

_xeno_ writes: E3 2015 saw a lot of game companies banking on nostalgia, but much less hype for new games. While the biggest thing coming out of Microsoft's press conference was undoubtedly the Hololens, the biggest buzz from E3 was probably Sony's announcement of Square Enix's announcement of a remake of a two decade old game (Final Fantasy VII), seconded by the announcement of a sequel to a fifteen year old game (Shenmue). Nintendo announced mostly new sequels as well. Ultimately, though, it isn't surprising that the biggest buzz is around old games. Old games are a known quantity, while truly new games are — well, new. Who knows if they're going to be the next classic or not?

_xeno_ writes: With cell phones and tablets becoming common, you might expect that dedicated TV-based consoles should be on the way out. Or, at least, Sony seems to think that may be the case. Yet the PS4 has already sold 10 million units, and Sony doesn't understand why. Sony's data indicates that the people buying the PS4 are for the most part not people who bought PS3s — leaving them concerned that they've already exhausted the market of people still interested in console gaming.

_xeno_ writes: You might not remember Final Fantasy XIV, the Square Enix MMORPG that flopped so badly that Square Enix fired the original developers. But Square Enix certainly does, and at a recent GDC panel, producer Naoki Yoshida explained his views on what caused its failure. One reason? The focus on graphical quality over game play, leading to flower pots that required the same rendering power as player characters, but without the same focus on making the game fun to play. Along with severe server instability and a world made up of maze-like maps, he also sited the game being stuck in past, trying to stick with a formula that worked with Square Enix's first MMO, Final Fantasy XI, without looking at newer MMOs to see what had worked there.

_xeno_ writes: Remember the giant PSN breach from 2011? Well, it's happened again: Sony has reset all PSN passwords in the US and EU as a "precautionary measure." While Sony claims that the network itself wasn't hacked, users with strong passwords have found their accounts among the compromised accounts, having added money to their PSN wallets and then being used to purchase in-game items sold by other players. If you currently have your credit card linked to a PSN account, you might want to rethink that decision.

_xeno_ writes: The PS3 may be running out of features to lose, but Sony is still finding them: the newest version of the console will no longer output Blu-ray movies over component cables. Right now this appears to be limited to only the newer models, but if you're using your PS3 to watch Blu-ray movies on a TV without HDMI, you may want to disconnect it from your network.

_xeno_ writes: Nintendo has announced the official name for what had been known as "Project Cafe:" the Wii U. It is an HD console, it remains backwards compatibility with the Wii (it's unclear if this includes GameCube software), and the controller does, in fact, have a touch screen on it. Nintendo demoed moving a game off the TV and play it solely on the Wii U controller.

_xeno_ writes: People owning the older "fat" PS3 models are being greeted with "error 8001050F" when trying to access the PlayStation Network. Unfortunately, thanks to trophies being a part of PSN, what should prevent online gaming prevents any game with trophies from being played at all — even those with no online portion. Attempts to play a trophy-based game, and certain downloaded games, cause the game to quit with an error. The problem appears to be clock related — the issues started on March 1st GMT, with the time on the console being reset to 0. Resetting the clock manually doesn't fix the issue — games still cannot be played. The best explanation of the problem can be found on the NeoGAF forums. Although the image posted there is incorrect: the older PS3s aren't limited to nothing, they'll still browse the web and play music and show pictures. They just won't play games.

_xeno_ writes: "Ever wanted to cancel your MMORPG subscription, only to discover that you can't figure out how? After jumping through hoops to cancel his son's Final Fantasy XI subscription, Frank Edwards decided that enough was enough. He contacted his friend and local state representative, and asked for some legislative assistance. If you, too, can't figure out how to cancel an online subscription, you can always move to Illinois, where a new state law requires "gaming service providers" to allow you to cancel your account online."